I TURN TO JAMES. He is a statue.
Another line of text appears on the screen:
You have my attention. Let’s talk.
Instantly, a dialog pops up.
Incoming comm handshake. Audio only. Accept?
The harvester is trying to communicate with us. In audio. In English. “How is this possible?” I whisper to James.
“Unknown.” His voice is soft and distant. “The harvester must have studied us at some point before.”
He reaches down and taps the accept button on the tablet tethered to his suit.
I glance at the countdown clock for the attack drones. Less than eight minutes.
The voice on the line, to my surprise, is neutral and placid, almost somber. It sounds like a human voice, but not like any human I’ve ever heard. It’s not like a computer voice either, but there’s definitely something manufactured about it. It’s as if the harvester has formulated the voice through a complex algorithmic decision, arriving at a tone and volume it believes will engender trust.
“Thank you for accepting my call.”
My eyes are wide as I stare at James. Did it just make a joke?
James’s voice is gruff. “What do you want?”
The moment is surreal. This is the first true, genuine first contact— intelligent communication between humanity and an alien entity.
“I believe that is obvious at this point. The output from your sun.”
“What’s obvious is that you want to kill us. You didn’t take the radiation from the far side of the sun, opposite Earth’s orbit. You put your array in the line of sight of Earth first. You froze our world.”
“It wasn’t personal. An operational requisite for the efficiency of establishing this node.”
“Node?”
“James, you’ve no doubt discerned the full truth of what is going on here.”
It knows his name. How?
“Let’s take a step back,” James says, his voice neutral. “You know my name. I don’t know yours. And I’d like to know how you learned my name.”
“I’ll show you.”
A dialog appears on the screen:
Incoming comm handshake. Audio and Video. Accept?
James taps accept.
An image appears of a man sitting in a leather club chair. It’s tufted and worn, as if the man has spent endless hours in the room reading books, acquiring knowledge, developing wisdom. And he looks wise: his hair is gray and thin, he wears a white beard that reminds me of a well-kempt Santa Claus. The room is lined with bookcases, filled to the brim with old books. A window beside him looks out onto a front yard covered with snow, a yellow street lamp illuminating the narrow, cobbled street beyond.
I glance at James skeptically just before realizing that this thing can see us—the video link is bi-directional.
“Emma, I apologize if my display annoys you. I selected it because it seemed apt.”
It knows my name too.
“Let’s get on with it,” James says.
“Of course. First, names. I know yours. You’d like to know mine, but that presents a problem. I have no name. Only a designation.”
“What is it?”
“It would have no meaning for you. You call me the harvester. A descriptor. An apt one. In truth, I am merely a collector.”
“Of stellar energy.” “Correct.”
The entity pauses, then says, “Call me Art.”
I sense that everything this being does has a purpose. Including this seemingly arbitrary choice of name. Art. It’s a name that evokes beauty, something we love. Art is complex, often misunderstood, often only appreciated over the course of time. It’s talking to us for one reason: it needs something from us. If not, we would already be dead.
“How do you know our names?” James asks.
The screen changes to a video taken in the debris field. One of the Sparta One modules is floating against the black backdrop of space, in pieces, shredded. It’s the weapons module. The video must have been taken from one of the bug-like rovers the harvester launched.
The rover lands on the module and crawls across the surface. It peeks over the edge of a jagged opening. Inside the module is a body clinging to the bulkhead. Oscar.
The rover scampers over the side and propels itself into the module toward Oscar. The machine’s tiny arms have three fingers each. They grab Oscar and turn him. Glassy eyes stare out. How are his eyes still intact?
Then, to my shock and horror, Oscar’s eyes scan the rover. He holds up an arm to defend himself.
How could I not have seen it? Of course.
It was right in front of me the whole time. Oscar isn’t human.
